


Tryptich: Passing Time

by sister_coyote



Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Character Study, Drabble Sequence, Fluff, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-05
Updated: 2006-12-05
Packaged: 2017-10-04 14:03:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/31019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_coyote/pseuds/sister_coyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is a year missing in his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tryptich: Passing Time

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for Kingdom Hearts 2.

Kairi sometimes feels that something's . . . missing. Riku is gone, of course, but that's one of the funny things: whenever she means to say "I miss Riku," she instead says "I miss Riku and—" and not knowing how to complete the sentence. She waits outside the school to meet . . . someone; not Selphie, not Tidus.

"Do you ever feel like something is missing?" she asks them slowly. Tidus shakes his head. Selphie says, "What do you mean?"

She thinks of blue eyes and a laugh she can't place, but she can't put that into words. "Nothing," she says. "Never mind."

***

Riku cannot track the passing of time in the dark realm, or in the World That Never Was, which has neither sun nor moon but the shining presence of Kingdom Hearts hangng low in a sky that feels more like a dome, an enclosed and unchanging space. So he cannot trace day and night or the turning of the wheel of stars; there is nothing to anchor him. He does not know how long it has been. Behind the blindfold, inside his head, this world is night: one long winter night. Morning and summer will come when Sora's eyes open.

***

It brings Sora up short, when Kairi mentions something he's missed. The fact that he's a year behind on schoolwork is trivial, but the fact that everyone looks so different, so that all his memories are just a little wrong, that throws him off. He has always been proud of being close to his friends, and it's peculiar to not know that Selphie has been seeing someone he's never met, or that Tidus is now their blitzball star. But on the shore at night, he looks at the stars, alight and turning like clockwork, and thinks: it was worth it.


End file.
